The Green Party will not stand a candidate in the Mt Roskill electorate should Phil Goff win the Auckland mayoralty race.

The party made the official announcement this afternoon after weeks of speculation it would not stand a candidate in the central Auckland suburb.

“The Green Party’s priority is changing the government in 2017 and, as part of that, we’ve decided we won’t stand a candidate in the probable Mt Roskill by-election,” says Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei.

The Greens and Labour signed a memorandum of understanding in May, where the parties committed to “work collaboratively to change the government.”

Ms Turei says today’s decision shows that agreement is working.

“The Mt Roskill by-election will be closely contested and we don’t want to play any role in National winning the seat,” she says.

Michael Wood, the Labour candidate, has previously railed against such “dirty deals”. Now he is exposed as an utter hypocrite.

“Epsom voters will be disgusted by the deal announced today to try and once again gift their electorate to the ACT Party”, says Labour candidate for Epsom Michael Wood.

“ACT is a party with no credibility. With a record of scandal, extreme libertarian positions on the issues, and no public support, ACT have not earned the right to a place in our House of Representatives.”

“The ACT candidate will dissemble about today’s announcement and pretend that it is simply an ‘endorsement’ from an Epsom constituent called John Key. This shows the political desperation and dishonesty of ACT. While being totally reliant on a deal for their political survival, they know that Epsom voters hate being manipulated”

“We have been campaigning for months in Epsom and voters across the political spectrum tell us that they will not tolerate having ACT foisted upon them again. People want to be able to make their own democratic decisions about their representatives, and not have parties make deals behind closed doors to stitch the election up”

“Epsom people deserve better than a dodgy deal to gift their seat to a discredited fringe party like ACT. We call upon Epsom voters to stand up and take back their electorate by saying ‘no deal’ to ACT on September 20”, says Michael Wood.

Looks like I was right when I placed Michael Wood in the Axis of Weasel some years back.

This is the single biggest issue for people in Epsom. I talk to Labour voters, I talk to National voters and across the board people are absolutely sick and tired of this. I just want to respond to that point. The idea of the Act party accusing other people of manipulating the electoral system is like Dad farting and then blaming the family dog.

It looks the Dad just farted and asked if anyone could smell petrol. Enjoy that big long sniff of Dad’s farts Michael.

Maybe hypocrisy is a requirement for membership of the Labour party.

-NBR

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. And when he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet, and as a result he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist that takes no prisoners.